


i wonder if your therapist knows everything about me

by jukain



Series: the one where there's actually medical professionals [4]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, CyberLife is Terrible, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, connor did not deserve any of this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 05:26:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15656676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jukain/pseuds/jukain
Summary: "The theory behind CPT conceptualizes PTSD as a disorder of non-recovery, in which a sufferer's beliefs about the causes and consequences of traumatic events produce strong negative emotions, which prevent accurate processing of the traumatic memory and the emotions resulting from the events."





	i wonder if your therapist knows everything about me

Connor is pushed to critical stress levels two sessions into his custom-tailored therapy.

Hank wouldn't have likely known had he not seen Clara snap up from her chair across the room and move with the steadfast quickness of someone heading into an emergency. He's up and at her heels not a second later.

The entire _ordeal_ takes less than a couple seconds, being generous. Clara guides Connor down onto the floor, sitting on his knees, where he had stood so sharply in a frenzy that he knocked his chair onto its side and a fair ways away. She holds his face gently in her hands, cradling his jaw with one and holding her fingertips against his led with the other. It flashes a dangerous, but subdued, red. The skin on her hands and on the points of contact she makes against Connor's face are pulled away for interfacing. She hums softly, evenly, with Connor slumped forward towards her, his body and face lax.

Hank gets only a glimpse of this, fear tight in the base of his throat and his instinct screaming at him to get to Connor _\--_

He isn't allowed another second before Nick, Connor's self-administered _therapist_ , manages to direct him out into the hallway and close the door quietly behind him, staring up at Hank with an unreadable gaze. He lifts an index finger to his lips and Hank makes a face, but obliges and motions a little stiffly down the hall with an arm. The unsaid and very brief conversation between them is received on both ends.

_She's helping him calm down. They need space._

Nick doesn't travel too far, looking a little apprehensive when the door to his office is nearly out of sight. He leans against the back wall just before a turn towards another department in the building, crossing his arms and exhaling.

_You have a lot of fucking explaining to do before I kick your ass._

Hank wastes no time stepping up to the man with heavy footsteps, though is able to restrain himself from outright making a scene before they can at least _talk_. He'd been getting better at handling situations like this, but his protective streak was merciless and indiscriminate anyway.

“What the fuck did you do?” Hank demands, voice soft but still seething.

“I did exactly what I told you I'd do, without the sensitive details.” Nick firmly holds his gaze and damn if Hank doesn't have some respect for his unflinching disposition, despite Nick himself being so frail and a bit small, especially when compared to Hank. “Therapy, and especially trauma therapy, isn't an easy or fun thing to go through. It's better and safer that we're able to gauge Connor's stress reactions early on so we can avoid further upset. This is completely new ground we're breaking--”

“So you just push him over the edge on week fucking _two_?” Hank snaps, voice rising in volume. Something in Nick's expression darkens, loosens.

“I have never and _will_ never push my patients to do _anything_ they aren't ready to do. The idea of therapy is to slowly _help him_ figure out how to live with his trauma, not torture him with it.” Nick stands up straight, back lifting from the wall, and steps forward into Hank's space. “And for the record, I don't need to explain myself to you.”

Hank's hands twitch, itching to dig into the man's stupid band shirt that he wore to work and shove him back against the wall. He could do it. He _wants_ to do it. But then there would be two _very upset_ androids, both of whom could certainly do worse to him than he could to Nick. One of which would _definitely_ do worse and would also definitely go through with it.

He thinks about Connor, jerking awake after nearly self-destructing, expression twisted with guilt and shame before flattening unnaturally into something neutral. Attempting to assess his partner's state of being over his; pretending nothing had happened to him and continuing to never talk about what he feels.

The violent impulse drains from him quickly and he breaks eye contact.

“I treat Connor with the same respect I do for all my patients, Lieutenant. That includes both the good and the bad shit. CPT in itself is highly effective for treatment of severe trauma and PTSD, but it takes time and a lot of-- uh, difficulty. It's honestly pretty shit and there's a reason why nobody wants to do it.” Nick laughs humorlessly, looking down at the floor. “And treating an android... I could hazard some estimates on what to do. I could make a loose plan of how to question them. But they don't have the psychological damage like Connor does, and it's going to make this entire process... not great.”

Hank watches Nick, who isn't even looking at him anymore but rather around him, back towards the door. He worries his lip in his teeth for a moment, appearing thoughtful, but eventually returns his attention to the man towering over him, about to speak. Hank beats him to the punch.

“What happened to make him freak out so badly?” He asks in a tone much more amicable than mere minutes ago, but only by a little.

“Not my place to say, sorry.” Nick answers instantly, but honestly. “Regardless of your relationship to Connor, he's legally considered an independent adult in this process, and any information about what goes on would have to come from him, explicitly. Unless he wants you to sit-in on a session with him and see it for yourself.” That idea sounds terrible and entirely too much for what Hank thinks his heart can take, but he won't deny that it's tempting. He isn't sure Connor would be alright with that sort of privacy invasion, though.

“Fuck.” Hank backs off, folding his arms across his chest and turning his back to Nick. “Of course the _one_ detective android ends up getting his head messed up so early on. He's been handling homicide cases pretty normally, even if sometimes he gets a little tripped up by-- by some real messed up shit. Happens to all of us eventually but of course it's gotta be...” He runs a hand over his beard and glances at Nick, whose openly shocked look freezes him on the spot.

Nick's mouth opens, closes. He swallows. Regains his composure, but is still clearly on edge and jams his hands into his pockets, likely to keep them from fidgeting.

“Lieutenant, what do you know about Connor's general background?”

A simple question with what should be a simple answer. So why did asking it _shake_ this goddamn near indomitable and endlessly stubborn man?

“Besides how he followed me around everywhere and felt the need to announce his connection to CyberLife to everyone he met in the first week? Whatever he's told me. Detective prototype android being tested on the field or whatever-- integration into the police force, taking more human jobs, etc. What with the revolution and all it wasn't exactly great timing. Whatever CyberLife had been intending to do with his model apparently sunk like all their other projects. And stocks.”

Nick doesn't look remotely satisfied with this answer, his eyebrows knitting and face pulling back into a grimace. He knows something Hank doesn't.

And Hank is very tired of not knowing critical information about his own friend.

“If there's something up with Connor, I'd strongly recommend you tell me right now. You said yourself that there aren't _technically_ laws preventing you from sharing information, and I am _honest to fuck_ past the point of even _caring_ about any of that shit. Tell me what's going on with him.”

Hank thinks, just for a second, that Nick is just as tired as he is, from how quickly his sturdy disposition crumbles. But it's only a passing thought. His real concern is for the panicked android shut in the other room, and nobody else.

“I'm... a lot of it came from Clara. Some memories she got from Connor when they interfaced the couple times,” Nick explains, “but a lot of it was his answers, or reactions, to questions I'd ask. My intake screening.”

Nick squeezes his eyes shut. “He genuinely enjoys his work. He was always happy to talk about it, no matter what detail or how ridiculously specific I was. He talked about crime scenes as though it were just-- well. Just another normal thing to him. Which is fair.”

“He's not bothered by work.” Hank answers the question long before it's brought up, and Nick nods. “Then what the fuck is messing him up so bad?”

Nick coughs out some kind of laugh. It's a cruel sound.

“The RK800 model is intentionally one of a kind for a reason, Lieutenant. Even if he had copies, which would definitely be tossed by now, there was a very real underlying reason for Connor being the _only_ one active. Despite there being more of him, capable of activating at any time. Sharing his memories. Working just as efficiently elsewhere.” His gaze rises to Hank's once more. “It would have been _so easy_ to test a walking forensics lab anywhere. Have a few of them out at a time, to test integration into a _variety_ of workplaces. It would have made more sense...” He shakes his head. “But I digress. I don't know anything about corporations.”

The determination in his face is back, but it's chilling. Hank feels a fuzzy sort of terror creeping in and trickling down his spine.

“Are you aware of Connor's combat abilities? The extent of which he can take down an opponent of any size, in any situation, unarmed or not?” Nick questions harshly, but continues without room for Hank to answer (he'd seen Connor fight, seen bodies, but only so so few), “Connor is equipped with the most advanced processor not just for his fancy blood testing, but to work with his _ridiculous_ amounts of combat strategic knowledge, proficiency with basically _anything_ that could be labeled as a weapon, up to and beyond military-grade sniper rifles and-- and fucking _carbines_. You've seen his precision with a standard-issue firearm? His reflex reaction to a threat and absolute accuracy, all of it taking less than a second. He can do that to any kind of weapon he gets his hands on, with inhuman speed. He's _programmed_ for it.”

Programmed. Hank hates that word. He didn't use to, but the way Connor tears into himself about his programming, how he should be, how he isn't. The way he curls in on himself, LED flashing yellow red yellow, as he's unable to process his own emotions. His programming won't let him. His programming.

“He was never meant to be a detective, and working with the police would be a _very liberal_ way to describe what I think they wanted him to do.” Nick is quiet, his voice bitter. “I don't know what those fuckers _actually_ intended for him, and at this point I honest to christ don't think I _want_ to know. But it's hurting him. Whatever they made him do, whatever he did. It's hurting him _extremely badly_ and he's struggling to come to terms with any of it.”

Hank thinks about Connor so innocently chiming in about his preference for dogs, his awkward little social fumbling and his habit with the coin tricks that never actually bothered Hank as much as he claimed they did. He thinks about the condensed scattering of CyberLife guard bodies he had seen just outside the elevator to the basement. The two he only caught a glimpse of inside the elevator itself. Connor had been entirely unscathed and not a single hair out of place after whatever confrontation happened there. He didn't go in armed. He hadn't been armed when he left.

“Fuck. Fuck!” Hank nearly shouts, spinning around and slamming his fist against the wall with a solid sound that carries. He holds it there, knuckles straining white. “Fucking piece of shit--” he growls, leaning his forehead against the wall, despair clawing in his chest.

Hank had been intensely proud of Connor during the conclusion of the protest, leading a literal army like a goddamn champ and single-handedly turning the tides to the androids' favor. Almost dying to Connor's doppelganger after being kidnapped, and then killing said doppelganger himself had worn Hank out in ways he never anticipated, so all he could do was watch the rest of the events unfold on tv, from his couch. He didn't think too hard about what happened in the tower basement. He didn't want to.

Connor never brought it up.

“I hadn't planned on keeping any of this from you forever-- I just--” Nick runs a hand through his hair. Hank doesn't move. “How would I _begin_ to explain this clusterfuck? How would _anyone_? CyberLife designs a _literal killing machine_ and doesn't have the foresight to consider their psychological conditioning of said machine _backfiring_. A 'deviant hunter' that deviates and has no mental fortitude, no emotional-- _fucking_ \--”

Hank is prepared to tell the jittery doctor to shut his goddamn mouth until he dares to look in his direction and sees Nick physically trembling in rage, staring hard at nothing. His pupils are pin-pricks and his chest heaves. Nick had been very tired, Hank could understand now, but more than that, he had been _angry_. And that, for Connor, is a feeling he could relate with.

“ _Then help him_.” Hank cuts through the tension in the air as well as anything that had so viciously consumed Nick's thought process. The man startles, turning to Hank. He's visibly pale.

“Do your job _and help him_. Do what you fucking said you were going to.”

Nick's jaw tightens, his eyes wide and a little glazed, but trained on Hank. He forces his breathing to steady with counted inhales and exhales, shaking the upset from him.

“I will.” He says with finality, voice refocused and clear. “I'm going to do everything I can.” For once, Hank trusts what he sees: the fire in Nick's eyes. The open and honest ferocity.

Still. “You better.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> it was me i was the ptsd the whole time
> 
> for real tho i write with personal experience on top of research to fill in the gaps. i'm in cpt right now and it sucks.
> 
> connor killed some dudes


End file.
